


"The Garden of the Lord"

by MedieavalBeabe



Category: Enjonine - Fandom, Les Misérables (2012)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Heaven, Romance, Slight Valjean/Fantine, enjonine - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 00:59:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4646421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MedieavalBeabe/pseuds/MedieavalBeabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not too late for two of the best characters in Les Miserables to find their happy ending...</p>
            </blockquote>





	"The Garden of the Lord"

**Author's Note:**

> This is based mainly on the film, so the characters are based on their actors, however there are also some bits incorporated from the stage musical as well that didn't feature in the film.

_“They will live again in freedom in the garden of the Lord,_

_“They will walk behind the ploughshare, they will put away the sword,_

_“The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward...”_

Heaven was a garden. And a barricade. And everything else imaginable.

 

Eponine looked down on the grounds of the beautiful house, belonging to a man she had once loved, the only surviving student of the Revolution, and his beautiful wife, seeing them cheerful at last in the wake of the young woman’s tragedy. She was struck with the memory of drifting into Jean Valjean’s rooms with the young woman she now knew to be Fantine, the girl’s mother, and taking one of his hands in her own whilst Fantine took the other, as they sang words of love and hope to guide his spirit to Heaven with their own.

 

And how Cosette and Marius had wept the passing of a dearly loved, and loving, father and friend, who had done more for them in their lives than they could ever know. If any man’s spirit deserved to end up in Heaven, Eponine decided, it was Jean Valjean’s.

 

She knew his story now, had learned it from him and Fantine, of how he had become an honest man after a priest had rescued him from being re-imprisoned on a charge of theft instead of turning him in, how he had come to believe in God and love and second chances, how he had redeemed his part in Fantine’s tragic death after being fired from his factory and degrading herself to the level of prostitution to get money for Cosette by taking in the girl himself, protecting her from every wicked thing in the world, giving her all he could, and then, atop it all, saving Marius, the man loved by both Cosette and herself, from being killed in the Revolution.

 

All while knowing that his own life was in danger from the man they had called Javert.

 

She had not bumped into him yet in Heaven, and she hoped that she never would.

 

It was less painful, she had come to learn, to watch the man she had died for and who had been unable to return her love, than it was to watch her parents, who seemed to have forgotten that they even had a daughter, let alone that she had died, as they went back to their old ways of conning the rich in any way they could, bleeding them dry for every penny.

 

Some people, it seemed, never changed.

 

Her love for Marius, she realised, was beginning to fade. Perhaps it was to do with the realisation that he would never feel that way for her, or perhaps it was knowing that now she had left Earth for Heaven, the chances of them meeting anytime soon were extremely slim, so her heart was telling her to forget her feelings and move on.

 

And though, at first, she had hated Cosette for stealing his heart away, she no longer felt any resentment. The girl was young, innocent to the ways of the world, she had been brought up in a different life, one that didn’t involve scraping for a living and sleeping in gutters, it was only natural that Marius had been drawn to her, and she to him.

 

And they did look happy together...

 

Suddenly she became aware that she wasn’t alone. Turning, she was only vaguely surprised to see Enjolras standing beside her, not looking at her, his sharp eyes intently focused on Marius. She knew that he too sometimes watched Marius go about his daily life, they had, after all, been good friends, and she knew that, of all the friends of the ABC Cafe’ that he had lost, Marius mourned him the most.

 

His presence was oddly comforting, she realised, turning her gaze back to Marius and Cosete, but Heaven was like that. No one was alone. Everyone had someone, a friend, a lover, a family member, or even just those people like them who could offer a friendly shoulder to cry on in times of need.

 

Not that she cried anymore.

 

“I’m sorry,” Enjolras said, finally.

 

She looked at him, questioningly, as his brown eyes fixed on hers, and then realised in the serious expression on his face that he was not apologising for anything, but rather offering his sympathies to her.

 

“No,” she sighed. “I’m happy for them. Really. They both deserved love and they found it.”

 

“But it leaves you on your own,” Enjolras pointed out.

 

Eponine shrugged. “Not quite on my own. Not anymore. There’s always someone close by.” Then, she turned her body to him fully. “I just wish...it hadn’t all been in vain. The Revolution. Your deaths.”

 

“I wouldn’t say it was in vain,” Enjolras replied. “We said we’d fight to the death and we did. We all died for what we believed in, just like you did.” Eponine smiled, shyly. “First casualty of the Revolution, you were.”

 

She blushed. “Well...I had to know...I mean, I hated not knowing what was happening. I mean, with Marius.” She took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes, noticing, not for the first time since arriving in Heave, how handsome he was. It was a different kind of handsome to Marius, who had beautiful eyes and a kind smile, but a weakness about his face even so, a youthful, boyish charm. Enjolras had strength about his face, the kind that made a person feel protected just by looking at him, and more than once she had seen him laughing with his friends and noted a mischievous glint in his eyes that she rather liked. “It was worth it,” she finished.

 

“You saved his life,” Enjolras said, offering her a sincere smile. “With a braveness I could never have possessed.”

 

She found herself blushing again. “But you _were_ very brave, Enjolras.” It was the first time they had had a conversation together where she had used his name. “You refused to surrender even at the last second.”

 

Enjolras offered her his hand and she took it, the action feeling perfectly natural to both of them. Spirits did this in Heaven, it was seen as a friendly gesture of comfort used by many. With one last look down at Marius and Cosette in their garden, Eponine allowed him to lead her away from the edge of the break in the clouds.

 

They walked together, silently, perfectly comfortable in one another’s presence. In Heaven, the landscape was perfect, no darkness, no dirty streets or bloodstained pavements at their feet, just pure green grass, neatly short and littered with wildflowers. The sky above them was forever blue in the day, and scattered with a billion glittering stars at night, never cloud-filled or grey or misty or stormy. Spirits wanted for nothing, they were never bored, never starving, never sleep-deprived, and never lonely.

 

It was truly a paradise for those who had come through the Revolution.

 

Their reward.

 

“Do you think,” Eponine finally trusted herself to venture, “that if the Revolution hadn’t happened, things might have been all that different?”

 

“We would have still suffered under our King,” Enjolras replied, his grip on her hand tightening just a little, just briefly, although she noticed and it made her blush again. “Lamarque still would have died. And we still would have wanted to have our say, even if we didn’t get it.”

 

“But you would still be alive,” Eponine pointed out.

 

Enjolras glanced at her and smiled. “Perhaps.” Then, his face became serious again. “And you would have still been the crooked innkeeper’s daughter, beaten down and abused. Marius guessed,” he added as she looked confused as to how he knew such things. Here, in Heaven, her scars didn’t show. It was strange, she thought, how some people had had their appearances altered in Heaven, but others didn’t. Like Fantine. She had had her hair cut off on Earth but it was still short here. Unless she had chosen it that way, to show that she was proud to have done whatever she could have done to save her daughter from dying. Eponine wondered briefly if, subconsciously, she had chosen to arrive in Heaven clean from all the abuse she had suffered over the years. Then, she realised that they had stopped and Enjolras was looking intently into her eyes again. He squeezed her hand again, gently. “If I’d been able...if I hadn’t been so wrapped up in this bloody Revolution the whole time...I would have helped, if I hadn’t been so foolish not to notice that those who really needed help were much closer to me all along.”

 

He was very kind, she realised, underneath that soldier bravado, that fighting warrior who believed in freedom had a heart beneath his armour. They had never had that much to do with one another on Earth, having only met a few times briefly through Marius, but now she was beginning to wish that they had done.

 

Then again, there was time enough for all that. It could be a new start for both of them.

 

“I don’t think you would have stood a chance against my Father,” she said, softly. “No man could have. Well, perhaps Valjean, being as strong as he is, but no one else.”

 

His expression softened. “You don’t hate me for not helping you?”

 

“No,” she answered, softly. “I would have been too proud to accept help, anyway. Besides, I was too wrapped up in Marius to even notice the beatings anymore.” Then, blushing, she ducked her head, adding “Not that he even saw me anyway.”

 

Then, to her surprise, Enjolras reached for her other hand, and she looked up at him, feeling a flurry of emotions she had almost forgotten about, a flurry that usually came from being near Marius.

 

“He didn’t,” Enjolras murmured, gently, his eyes warm and sincere, “but I did.”

 

She wanted this, Eponine realised, and not just because Marius had found someone else. The way he was looking at her, it was a way she had always wanted to be looked at, not just by Marius, but by anyone who thought she worthy enough to be loved. In the space of a few minutes, they had grown closer to one another than she and Marius had ever grown in a few years.

 

She had been too blinded by Marius, and her own stubborn pride, before to notice that someone more worthy of her feelings was standing right in front of her.

 

A smile crept across her face, not a smirk, an actual smile of happiness, something she had never known until this moment.

 

He leaned in closer to her, giving her every possible opportunity to pull away if she wanted to, but she didn’t want to, and then her eyes fluttered shut as his lips finally met her own after what seemed like an age. Something like a spark of fire engulfed her body and she returned his kiss with more enthusiasm than she knew she possessed. He released her hands, his arms encircling her waist and pulling her so close that she was pressed right up against him. Eponine parted her lips to allow him entrance and sighed into his mouth, evoking a soft moan of something that sounded very like her name from him. Slowly, by degrees, her hands snaked up the front of his red coat of their own accord until she was able to wrap her arms around his neck. She felt Enjolras smile against her lips and then lift her slightly so that she was reaching up, almost on the tips of her toes, almost off the ground, as he reached up and ran a hand through her unbelievably soft hair.

 

Eventually, and rather reluctantly, they had to part for air, and she sensed that Enjolras wanted to say something but couldn’t quite find the words.

 

“Monsieur Enjolras lost for words?” she teased. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

 

Enjolras chuckled, actually enjoying how much this girl could sometimes leave him completely breathless, let alone lost for words. “Sometimes actions speak louder than words,” he teased back, capturing her lips in another fiery kiss.

 

A little distance away, arm in arm, Valjean and Fantine stood, overlooking the scene with fondness. As happened in Heaven, they too had grown closer, being, after all, parents to Cosette even though they had only met one another for the space of one evening on Earth, but their bond had strengthened with their meeting again in Heaven. Presently, they looked at one another and smiled, knowingly.

 

“About time too, I say,” Valjean said, and Fantine nodded as they turned and walked away from the scene, leaving Enjolras and Eponine to have their romantic moment.

_“Will you join in our crusade?_

_“Who will be strong and stand with me?_

_“Somewhere beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?_

_“Do you hear the people sing?_

_“Say, do you hear the distant drums?_

_“It is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes...”_


End file.
